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A so-called visionary who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.

Key Accusations and Particulars

Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.

They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their religious followers.

Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.

Additional Claims

Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.

Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on scams and hoaxes.

“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.

Context and Related Events

Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.

News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.

Pope Leo authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets.

The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.